by N. D. Wilson
Rhonda and Alex looked at each other.
“Did you hear any of that?” Alex asked.
“Hear what? Hey, at least we’re not dead,” Rhonda said after a moment. “There’s worse things than growing up. And if we can just get rid of her, this whole thing will be amazing.”
Alex tugged on his pointed beard. “I feel like I’m in a costume.”
“I think you are,” Rhonda said. “But you look good. Maybe you’ll like it. And if you don’t, maybe there’s ways to get younger again.” Glancing at the tunnel, she stepped closer to Alex. “Just listen to the witch lady. We have to learn everything we can. Everything. Then phffft, and we’re out of here. Use your watches to tear the roof off and fly us back home through that pukey darkness.”
“Phffft?” Alex asked.
Phffft? Mrs. Dervish asked inside his head.
Rhonda’s plan was going to be harder than she thought. But he didn’t need to tell her that Mrs. Dervish was in his head. Rhonda grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the doorway.
“Come on. Let’s climb some stairs. She wants you up top.”
Alex ducked along behind Rhonda through at least eight different tunnels, all laid out at right angles, some wide enough for two, some too narrow for him to even keep his shoulders square. Occasional dark doorways opened on chambers full of statues, but most of the rooms they passed were sealed up tight and labeled with strange etchings. Bronze bowls with slow fire were spaced just far enough apart that Alex and Rhonda had to feel their way through wide stretches of shadow between pools of light. Soft dust kicked up under Alex’s bare feet, occasionally laced with the crunch and prick of rodent bones and insect husks.
Finally, they reached a cubical chamber with a high ceiling of massive stone slabs. Two carved queens guarded wide stairs that rose, while two kings guarded a flight that descended into utter darkness.
“Why did she pick you?” Rhonda asked.
Three reasons, Dervish’s voice announced in his head.
“Three reasons.” The words were out of Alex’s mouth before he could stop them. That was new. “Stop it!” he snarled.
Rhonda backed away from him. Mrs. Dervish continued to speak, and Alex’s voice trailed just behind hers like an echo. But it was an echo that was catching up to the original. After a moment, Alex’s words came at virtually the same time as the words from Mrs. Dervish, but unnaturally, and in spurts.
“First, there was the matter of inheritance. William Sharon was slain by Samuel Miracle. By design, the time gardens and the charmed timepieces most easily pass to a conqueror when blood is spilled and a life taken. Samuel refused them. Naturally, his son was the next in line.”
Rhonda’s mouth hung open. Her back was against a stone wall. “Is this you talking?” she whispered.
Alex shook his head and grabbed at his throat, but the words continued to pour out of him. His voice pitched up, imitating Mrs. Dervish’s.
“Second, as an infant, Alexander’s parents abandoned him to be raised by his aunt and uncle. They never bothered to return. This made him vulnerable. A very simple acquisition. I could have had another child murder him, thereby inheriting, but why waste a perfectly suited and completely defenseless boy? Finders keepers, as some children say.”
Alex turned in a circle, lashing out with his arms. His body shook with anger at the invasion, muscles trembling, ears screaming. Words formed in his throat and his jaw tried to move. He bit his lower lip hard, drawing blood, but his mouth still opened.
“Third, and most enjoyably, despite their abandonment of him, the Miracles will find it heartbreaking to hunt down and kill their own son. If they succeed, then—”
Alex shoved his hand in his mouth and grabbed his tongue. It twisted and wriggled and his lungs puffed, but the words were unintelligible. And then they stopped. Tentatively, Alex released his tongue, waiting. His blood was still hot, but not as hot as the watch chains in his heart. He could feel veins twitching in his forehead. He felt like he could shatter stone as easily as glass. He wanted to feel the plump witch’s throat in his bare hands.
“Are you okay?” Rhonda asked. “That was pretty dark.”
Alex gathered his watch chains, and swung them above his head. In a flash, they splayed out like a tornado, opening a drain hole of dark nothingness in the stone above him.
Rhonda lunged toward him, grabbing on to his waist just as he jumped into the air, letting the watches pull him into the tornado of darkness.
At first, Alex thought he had torn off the roof, opening up an entry into the darkness between times. But as the watches lifted him up into it, one stone chamber vanished below him as he entered another one above. He hadn’t escaped at all; his funnel cloud through space-time was simply serving as an elevator. Another chamber appeared above him. And another. And another. And still he and Rhonda were surrounded by stone, even as they accelerated. They weren’t escaping at all. Torchlit hallways lined with statues and sarcophagi flicked by. Wide stairwells divided and then reconnected higher up. Chamber after chamber, hallway after hallway, tunnels and throne rooms and bedrooms and libraries.
Back home, Alex had been able to exit his own plane of existence, flying through timeless darkness above the duplexes in his neighborhood like so many dollhouses. Now he felt trapped, stuck inside a swirling shaft that couldn’t quite break free of the tower. No doubt that was why Mrs. Dervish hadn’t been at all worried about the phffft escape plan. But Alex wasn’t done trying. Maybe there was a way he could turn his swirling column of darkness sideways. If a horizontal move got him out of the tower, it would be just as good.
“Hang on,” he said, and he immediately felt Rhonda tighten her grip. Raising his right hand above his head, he gathered his watch chains around his forearm before gripping them in a bunch. Swinging the watches once, twice, he flung them out to his right side. The black tornado above him suddenly cracked sideways like a whip, corkscrewing horizontally through stone walls. Alex and Rhonda lurched to the side, sucked down the tunnel like spinning flotsam through a flooding culvert. The whipping black tornado made Alex think of Sam Miracle facing El Buitre in Arizona, but Sam had fled the whip. Alex owned it. Sort of.
Alex and Rhonda rode the twisting, swiveling current of emptiness out the side of the tower. But there was no sky to be seen. No air. No clouds. They were underground, floating backward through sandy soil. The funnel widened behind them, showing Alex more and more of the buried tower at once—a nearly endless stack of stone. Armies of sarcophagi lined floor after floor along with hundreds of undead and partially decayed sleepers, clutching scepters and bronze swords.
Outside the tower, the darkness between times was surrounded with sandstone. Inside, thousands of bowls holding slow flame lit hundreds of visible floors.
“She wasn’t lying,” Rhonda said. “It’s huge. And very underground. If this tornado tunnel thing collapses we’re dead and buried all at once. Cheap and efficient.”
Alex didn’t answer. He didn’t care. All he wanted was to get away. He grabbed a small watch out of the swirl and pushed it above his head. All he knew was that it wouldn’t guide him to Paris. But anywhere else was fine with him.
Instantly, he felt the change in direction as he and Rhonda veered away into deeper darkness. Had he done it? Was this escaping?
“Where are we going?” Rhonda asked.
The watch Alex had chosen drifted away and was replaced by another, immediately whipping them back the way they had come, toward the buried tower.
I have your blood. I have chained your heart. You cannot leave me unless I am willing. And I am not willing. Yet.
“No,” Alex grunted, and the watch spiraled out of control, spinning him faster and faster, until he could only close his eyes and grab on to Rhonda as she began to slip away.
“PICK HIM UP,” MRS. DERVISH SAID. AND THEN, “WELCOME to the ancient eye, Alexander Miracle, the first and most powerful of all time gardens. Crown of the tower you were so rudely attempting to e
scape. On American dollars, this eye perches on top of a pyramid. But the reality is more impressive.”
Alex felt cold hands slip beneath his bare arms and he was lifted onto his feet. He was standing inside a strange pyramid. The floor was actually thick, green grass. The four triangular walls that leaned together above him . . . weren’t really there. They were openings. Emptinesses. Glassless windows. Two triangular sides across from each other opened onto different night skies—the moon was visible in both, but in different phases and heights. The sun was visible in the other two sides, setting in one and rising in the other. But the light was muted somehow, leaving the scorching sun no brighter than the moon. The air was cool on Alex’s skin and the two men with liquid eyes held him on either side. With ten years added to his age, he was taller than both of them now. Taller, but not stronger.
The space was full of hedges and fruit trees and statues and flowers, some bright and new and others sagging with brown-edged blooms. In the center, there was a square pool of black water, and at its four sides, four stone pedestals holding four golden sundials, and from each sundial, a chain rose. The four chains met above the water—all linked to a large open hourglass. While Alex watched, sand rose up from the hourglass toward the pyramid’s peak. Then it slowed, fell back into the glass, and trickled through, sprinkling down into the pool.
Alex didn’t see Mrs. Dervish anywhere, but the men were dragging him toward four lemon trees beside the pool. The trees surrounded a small stone enclosure. As they approached it, the men gave him a shove and he staggered forward.
“By all means, go where you like and do what you like,” Mrs. Dervish said behind him. “I will summon you when you’re needed. But I insist that you clothe yourself first.”
The plump, rustling woman appeared from behind him, took his arm, and led him into the low structure. The place held a small bed, a fireplace, and walls lined with weapons and clothing.
“This is where El Buitre recuperated after he received the watches,” she said. “Before we set up his roost in San Francisco.”
Alex saw western holsters with pistols, knives, swords, hooks, saws, whips, and even a mace. Beside the bed, there was a pair of tall black boots, freshly cleaned, and on the bed, a white shirt and trousers, a shiny wine-colored vest with seven pockets for watches, and an enormous buffalo coat.
“In public, you represent me now,” Mrs. Dervish said. “Rob banks or captain a pirate ship or start hospitals and feed the poor. But you must look good.” She patted Alex on the arm. “Get dressed. Then go where you like. Be what you like.”
“I can leave,” Alex said. “You’re not joking?”
“Spread your wings,” Mrs. Dervish said. “Enjoy your freedom. Be a god among men. Take what you want when you want it. No human law can bind you.”
“And you’ll stay out of my head?” Alex asked. “You won’t drag me back here?”
“I’ll drag you where I like. When I like.” Mrs. Dervish walked to the bed, picked up a shirt, and examined it closely. “I, too, am not bound by human law.”
“What about the girl?” Alex asked.
“The girl is standing right behind you,” Rhonda said. “I threw up in some bushes.”
“I don’t care what you do with her,” Mrs. Dervish said. “Take her, leave her, or drown her in the pool. It makes no difference to me.” She tossed Alex the shirt, and then gripped him by both arms, looking him up and down with a tight smile. He towered over her.
“Oh, yes. You do look the part now. The heroic rogue. I hope you live up to it. Sack cities, sink ships, abduct a queen, pillage. Steal King Arthur’s sword and pick your teeth with it. For the first time in your boring little life . . . be . . . interesting.”
Pulling him down toward her, she rose onto her toes and placed a quick kiss on his scruffy cheek. Then she backed away quickly, turned, and was gone.
“I’ll drown you in the pool,” Rhonda said.
8
Family Will Out
ALEXANDER MIRACLE COULDN’T STOP RUBBING HIS HANDS on the polished grips of the two revolvers in the heavy double holster that he had strapped on over his new trousers. The black leather of the holster matched his tall boots, and all of it had been polished to a high shine. His wine-colored vest had almost as much gleam, and it was strange how relieved he felt having pockets for all the watches. Six gold-and-pearl chains striped his torso like lights on a Christmas tree. Alex had left the one broken chain dangling under his shirt, tickling his bare ribs. The coolest thing of all was the buffalo coat. The weight of it, the warmth of it, the smell of it—he felt like he was wearing centuries. It made him feel dangerous, too, a true outlaw. Wide open, leaving his vest and guns bright and available, it was more like a buffalo cape with sleeves.
“You need a hat and a horse,” Rhonda said. She had scrounged for herself, but everything in the little bedroom had been crafted with someone of a different size, age, and gender in mind. Still, her puffy jacket was gone, and now she wore a black velvet coat embroidered with gold. It reached her knees, but she’d belted it tight around her middle and rolled the sleeves up to her elbows.
Rhonda hooked her thumbs in her belt and looked around. “I don’t see the witch anywhere, so what’s the plan. Pirates? Alexander the Great? Ancient Egypt? I’d love to see the Forbidden City in China back when there were, you know, emperors. And it was forbidden.”
Alex didn’t answer. He gripped both pistols, pulled them like a gunfighter, and then slid them back home.
To be honest, if he could be anywhere in the world at that moment, he would probably choose home. In bed. When his sisters had still lived at home. Before he’d become so very alone. Definitely before he’d had chains punched into his chest and a decade of growth added to his frame.
Rhonda stepped around in front of him, looking for eye contact that he didn’t want.
“Don’t get all depressed now,” she said. “You think this is awful? Sure. Maybe it is. And I’m pretty sure it’s real because I’m starving and I’ve never been hungry in a dream before. But even if you could, would you really want to wake up back on our stupid little street and just go right back to middle school? Because I wouldn’t. Were you really living the life you wanted?”
“I’m going back,” Alex said. “But earlier.”
“Earlier,” Rhonda said. “Because it was so much better when you were ten?”
“To find my real parents,” Alex said. “I want to know why they left me. They might be dead or they might still be out there somewhere. But they were definitely in the past. I could find them there.”
“But you were a baby, right?” Rhonda said. “When they left. You want to show up as a time traveler with a beard just to say hey to your parents? We could go anywhere . . . in . . . history. Or the future. And that’s what you want to do?”
Alex thought about it. And then he nodded.
“Yeah. More than anything else.”
Rhonda raised her hand like she wanted to hit him, but instead she just brushed off his red vest and chewed on her lip.
“Okay, Terremoto, I think your blood sugar must be low or something. Don’t get me wrong, I get it. You want to meet them. You want to know what happened. Fine. But you are sitting on the biggest lottery ticket ever. We could gather up all sorts of treasure and head back to the 1980s as the richest, most famous, most powerful people in the entire world. We could even grab some inventions from the future and bring them back as ours. I’m talking about movie star, Michael Jackson–level fame and money. Let’s do that first, and then find your parents. You can invite them to your castle. Or your blimp palace. Introduce them to your pet white tigers and serve them ten-thousand-dollar champagne in, I don’t know, unicorn-horn goblets, while dinosaurs graze in your personal zoo. You might literally be the first kid, ever, who could have anything . . .”
Alex looked out at the pool and its suspended hourglass in the center of the pyramidal garden. Directly behind the pool, a crescent moon was setting over a des
ert horizon. To the left, the sun was climbing high over a forest. To the right, the last burning embers of a sunset were fading as stars began to appear.
“What are you saying we should do?” Alex asked. “Exactly.”
“I am saying,” Rhonda said, “exactly, that we should pick a year that we want to be our home base. I liked 1982 just fine, but I’m open to suggestions. Then we pick out the first treasure we want, we go get it, then we take it back to 1982, buy some ridiculously amazing house, and then we pick the next treasure. Rinse and repeat, my friend, rinse and repeat. We could be the first trillionaires.”
Alex sniffed. He was sure it wouldn’t be anywhere near as easy as she made it sound. Anger was beginning to trickle through him. He expected a whisper from Mrs. Dervish, but nothing came. And his hairy jaw was itching horribly. He grabbed at his beard and clawed through it to reach the skin.
“Well,” Rhonda said. “Shall we become legends?”
“You keep saying we. Why should I bring you? I could just drop you off back at the junior high and then do the treasure thing myself.”
“I am the one with the ideas,” Rhonda said. “If it weren’t for me, you’d be watching your baby self through a window crying for mama. And it’s your fault that I’ve been aged ten years. They’d never let me back into junior high. My life might not have been much, but you wrecked all of it.”
The trickle of anger that had been growing in Alex suddenly erupted. Alex spun on Rhonda, leaning toward her, fists clenched. “If it weren’t for you, I never would have obeyed the blood message. I wouldn’t have these chains in my chest. I would be home reading right now. None of this would have ever happened!”
Rhonda stepped toward him, looking straight up into his eyes. “You’re welcome,” she said.
Alex sagged.
“I hate to quote that witch,” Rhonda said. “But be interesting.” She looked around the empty room. “We should giddyup, cowboy. Who knows how long she’ll leave us be.”